💾 Archived View for james.flounder.online › replies › breakup.gmi captured on 2024-12-17 at 09:47:34. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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hi I like this thing of people talking to/at each other so I’ll attempt it. These are less “to” the person & more thoughts as related to what they’ve shared.
@hmmmmmmmmm & @ztbd were talking about breakups so I wanted to share my experience.
I recently ended an 8yr long relationship that lasted thru most of my 20s, I didn’t even conceptualize “breaking up” as an option until a friend asked directly about that possibility. All the advice I’ve seen (not that anyone asked) has said “if you think you should break up, it’s already past the time to do so”. But ofc everyone & everything at their own pace & based on what timing makes sense. For me I had this realization & decided I could go another few months in the relationship to see how that felt. Unfortunately the next day they did something very disrespectful & I told them I was done. I really truly thought we would last thru the summer even if unhappily, even if strained & disconnected, but I hit my breaking point sooner than expected. Personally I’m grateful that I ended things when I did. I think if I had waited any longer, we wouldn’t be able to be friends now. Which I know is not feasible in every relationship but is something we both wanted & worked towards. I think if I had waited longer our distain towards each other would have grown unmanageable & would’ve been even more difficult for either/both of us to recover from. Of course I say all that & still many days a week I email my therapist to say “well I want to get back together” & “maybe we could still get married” & things of that nature. It is a difficult & tumultuous process no matter what happens. There is still a lot of love between us (not always the case with break-ups) but our dynamic truly was so not working for me anymore. In the end I hated how I felt about them & about our relationship. I knew I couldn’t change how I felt so I needed to change the situation instead.
I talked to a friend today about this issue I have, where the requirement or obligation of the type of relationship becomes, to me, a barrier to authentic desire for that relationship. Where I felt “trapped” at a certain point by this life I had built with this person I loved, where it felt like I “had to” love them even when I didn’t want to anymore. Mm actually that’s not quite right. More that I had to be a certain way & treat them a certain way & had to play this role that I no longer wanted to play, or no longer had the capacity to play. Like it was a job I applied for & loved for a long time but didn’t feel like I was allowed to quit even when I was completely burnt out. As soon as I felt like I had no choice, I wanted out. I felt like I was running into the edges of the relationship, pushing up against the boundaries of it. Where I used to see endless possibilities & hope within that space, like the relationship could go on forever & I felt like a horse with more than enough space to roam. At a certain point I found the fence, and then another, and then another, & I kept running into these barriers that felt so restrictive & impossible to see past. I realized that if I wanted to continue to have hope for my future, I needed to escape the pasture I felt trapped by.
& I was talking to my friend about these feelings, which I understand as inhibiting my relationships. That I would be better off NOT feeling that way, but what can I do except try to understand my feelings & do my best not to put myself in situations to hurt others because of these tendencies. People ask if I’m dating now but I never have, I never was. I worry that any long-term relationship I enter would reach this point, which isn’t “bad” y’know like, things last as long as they do & it’s not a failure of a relationship for it to end. But I do think that I’m someone who can be content with my situation for a long time & then very suddenly feel like I need to get out or I’ll explode. I feel the walls closing in on me & I say “ok we had a good run, looks like it’s time for me to take my leave”.
I want to be able to communicate these feelings before I reach that point. Sometimes I have, like at Starbucks, when I told my boss I was at the end of my rope & only had a month left in me. She ended up convincing me to stay another 3 months, or to take a demotion, or a bunch of other options to keep me there for longer. & after that convo I felt even less in control & so I put in my 2wk notice a few days later.